Angel Fuller McMahan, 42, of Owls Head had pleaded guilty to possessing cocaine and to criminal forfeiture of property and was sentenced to one year in jail with all by 30 days suspended. At McMahan’s request, the court agreed to allow her to have daily doses of methadone at her personal expense while she served her jail sentence.

The court later overturned its decision, however, when Knox County Jail officials said this practice was against jail policy. According to a motion filed in Knox County Superior Court, the jail weans inmates serving more than a 14-day sentence off methadone, instead giving the inmates pain treatment for withdrawal symptoms.

McMahan’s attorney, Jay McCloskey, petitioned the court to eliminate the jail sentence altogether and just have his client serve probation so that McMahan could “avoid the painful medical consequences of the jail’s policy requiring termination of methadone maintenance treatment.”

Judge Joseph Field then modified McMahan’s sentence to 14 days in jail and 14 days under house arrest, allowing McMahan to continue her methadone treatments both in jail and out.

McMahan is supposed to start serving her sentence on or before March 1.

McMahan was arrested July 13 after police witnessed her buying drugs in a New County Road parking lot and later found $2,500 worth of cocaine hidden in her pants and drug paraphernalia in her car, according to police.

The arrest occurred not far from the Turning Tide methadone clinic owned by McMahan. About a month later, federal law enforcement officials shut down the clinic, citing unspecified threats to public health and safety.